Hi Tweets,

With the cancellation of the April 19th Westport Seabirds pelagic trip I
decided to do my second spring swing through Eastern Washington. On the
Vantage side of the river we saw ravens, crows, starlings, a red-tailed
hawk, red-winged blackbirds, western meadowlarks, American robins, mountain
bluebirds, purple finches, white-crowned sparrows, song sparrows, one sage
sparrow, and a sage thrasher. At Vantage I spotted one scaup on the water
below the Gingko Interpretive Center and a couple of Say's phoebes.

We drove down the Columbia to Beverly Road and headed east along Lower Crab
Creek. The only yellow-headed blackbirds we saw were just before the
terrible noise and dust of the Beverly Dunes Off-Road Recreation Site (What
happened? That wasn't there 25 years ago when I used to float the lower
section of the creek in my canoe!) Lots of white-crowned sparrows in this
vicinity, along with a male wood duck and a Lewis' woodpecker. About a
third of a mile west of the bridge that crosses Crab Creek, in a pond to the
south of the road, we found 9 male avocets and one greater yellowlegs.
Nearby were 3 northern pintails.

The Sandhills were not to be seen. They were no longer along "B" SE. We
headed back to Dodson Road and Birder's Corner. As I was walking along the
road a sedan pulled up alongside of me. A woman and her kids rolled down
the window and said, "We've seen you here before." "If you did," said I,
"it was last Saturday as that was my first time here." They said they lived
about two miles west and asked if I would like to see the Great Horned Owl
nest in their yard and the two-week old owlet. Not being overly dumb, I
asked them to wait while I hoofed it back to the car and informed my sister
that our owl karma had not failed and we were off to see a family of Great
Horneds. These folks live on the SW corner of Frenchman Hills Road and "E"
SW. A very nice family. Mom was on the nest with the little tyke. What a
cutie! They said Dad shows up after sunset. (Unless you know these
property owners, I would not recommend just showing up to view the owls.
And you can't see the nest from the road.)

After a nice visit we headed back to check out the artificial burrows and
found both burrowing owls on this visit. We then worked our way north on
Dodson Road looking for a nest of long-eared owls. Didn't find it, but we
did find a nest with one Great Horned. Could that have been Dad? It was
about a mile north of Birder's Corner. We wondered if he hangs out up there
during the day, returning to the "E" SW nest at night to relieve Mom.

At Birder's Corner we identified the following: 1 great egret, 1 blue
heron, 1 killdeer, 1 kestrel, cinnamon teals, green-winged teals, gadwalls,
wigeons, shovelers, mallards, red heads, canvas backs, black-necked stilts,
scaup, red-winged blackbirds, 1 coot, a couple of dunlins, mourning doves,
white-crowned sparrows, and a couple of cliff swallows.

All in all, not a bad substitute for that cancelled pelagic trip.

Carol Riddell
cariddell at mac.com